When you install PhotoPlus SE, the program requires you to fill in a form in order to receive a free registration key. Once registered, you gain access to a myriad of basic photo-editing features, such as red-eye reduction and quick fixes such as adjustments to a photo's brightness, contrast, and sharpness. There are also various effects in PhotoPlus SE you can play around with, like increasing blurriness, sharpening, and a distortion feature. In addition, users can work with layers to add more effects to their pictures.
Unfortunately, PhotoPlus SE's most advanced and desirable features are restricted to the paid version of the program. This includes their various tutorials. PhotoPlus SE is consequently a good program for photo-editing beginners, but more advanced users may find the features a bit lacking as a result.
Overall, PhotoPlus SE is relatively easy to navigate and use, making it a good choice for novices or those wanting a good introduction to photo retouching. Those with a more advanced background might want to try other programs, like PhotoFiltre, Paint Shop Pro, or PhotoShop.
Unlike the full version of PhotoPlus, PhotoPlus Starter Edition does not support 64-bit high color images, has no studio for editing RAW images and has no HDR photo merge feature. Other restrictions of PhotoPlus Starter Edition include no dedicated studios for fixing photos (PhotoFix), and extracting images (Cutout Studio). Plus no Filter Gallery or features for batch processing collections of images.
Serif's PhotoPlus Starter Edition is a freeware image editing and photo enhancement suite that competes with Photoshop and similar tools. Although PhotoPlus Starter Edition lacks some of the dedicated tools of the pro version, it still does a lot, including adjusting, resizing, retouching, and modifying digital photos and other images.
When I enlarged the view raw photo files in Organizer, I only got a very pixelated enlargement of the thumbnail rather than a detailed image until half a minute later, when the full-resolution image loaded. For many common operations, though, the interface does seem faster than previous versions, and for long operations, a progress bar gives you an idea of how much time you have to wait.
After working on an image in the editor and then moving back to the Organizer, that helper app didn't open with the image I'd just been working on displaying, and I had to dig through my photo folders if I wanted to share that image or do some other organizing with it. This is just the sort of lack of helpfulness and intuitiveness you run across this app. Another is that the filename doesn't display anywhere when you open a full view of an image in Organizer. I did, however, like how spinning the mouse wheel zoomed in and out, without even holding a shift key down. You can also zoom in further in this latest version of the program, helpful for detail work.
Import and Organize Digital Photos
Turns out that, as with Photoshop, there's no importing capability in the photo editor, but you need to run the external PhotoPlus Organizer to take care of this, just as with Photoshop you have to run Bridge or with Photoshop Elements, Organizer. Nor does the PhotoPlus installer add an import option to the AutoPlay dialog that appears when you insert camera memory. I could import raw camera files like Canon .CR2 files, but thumbnails for these didn't display in the import dialog, though those for JPGs did. You can tell the importer to create a new folder, but by default, it just dumped image files into the root Pictures folder, not ideal for organization
An import of 43 raw files, each about 20MB, took 4:44 minutes. By comparison, the same import in Adobe Photoshop Elements took 3:08 minutes, and took me straight to the freshly imported images when done. When the PhotoPlus import was finished, I wasn't taken to the folder of my just-imported photos, and there was no way to view just photos from my last import session: the Organizer simply drops the photo files into a subfolder under Pictures. One nice option was the Include folder, which automatically imports any photos that appear in this folder to PhotoPlus. NRW files from a recent Nikon camera showed up as modern art (they weren't), and didn't display in the PhotoPlus editor either.
One nice tool that seemed a little out of place in the Raw Import/PhotoFix dialog was Edit mask, which made it easy to select similar areas of the photo and selectively apply adjustments to just those. Adjustment brushes, though, are completely missing. This kind of tool, which lets you brush on effects like white balance changes, and contrast, has made its way into nearly all photo editors at this point.
The last version added an HDR tool; this version of PhotoPlus sees the addition of tool that's become a requirement in photo software: selective focus, aka "tilt-shift." Part of the Depth of Field, tool Tilt Shift offers guides you can move to capture the part of a shot that you want in focus, and also lets you boost brightness and saturation for a more powerful effect, but when I used the brightness boost, the effect was ruined because its edge was hard rather than feathered. Other depth of field options, such as elliptical, linear gradient, and layer mask, can make your subject pop out from the background.
Another advanced tool in the editor is Cutout Studio, which resembles Photoshop Elements' "out of bounds" feature that lets you extract the subject of a photo from the background. Its built-in instructions made marking parts of the photo to keep and discard a snap. Other procedures included similarly helpful tutorials, similar to Corel's sidebar and Adobe's Guided Edits. I could either correct red eyes or blemishes easily in the PhotoFix or using layers the Photoshop way in the full PhotoPlus editor.
Uploading to Facebook or Flickr from within PhotoPlus's Organizer was a simple matter of signing into my account. But I wasn't asked about where to put the photo or privacy settings, let alone tags or descriptions. Each time I had to approve access, but I didn't see the uploaded photos in my stream. When the upload was complete, my browser helpfully opened to the photo on the site.
Serif PhotoPlus X7 is a complete photo editor that allows you to create photos like a professional. With this program you can remove all imperfections in a flash, add stunning artistic effects, enjoy amazing color control, restore classic photos and much more. Also, you can remove red eye, spots and blemishes from your pictures, smooth skin appearance and use simple resizing tools to trim down and enlarge pictures to fit a frame or canvas in one click.
thanks for your reply Joseph! I'll copy and save what you wrote and when I have time to play around I'll try to decipher with my photo in front of me to work on. I'm sure it won't seem as complicated if I have it there to mess with. I'll let you know how it goes when I do!
Mary
ages ago(permalink)
Manufacturer description: PhotoPlus Essentials is the fast and easy photo editor. ItÕs user-friendly and makes printing and uploading pictures simple as well. This affordable software is also ideal for people who want to organise their image collection and explore stunning creative effects. Photo editing has never been so easy.
This main rivalry with Photoshop Elements is emphasised by Serif PhotoPlus X5's new Organiser application. It fills exactly the same role as the Elements Organizer, bringing together all your photos into a centralised catalogue, where you can apply tags to photos, create smart albums based on specific search criteria, locate your photos on a map and even stack related photos so that they don't become separated.
You can open photos in Serif PhotoPlus X5 direct from the Organiser, and open the Organiser to find photos from within PhotoPlus X5. When you save a new version of a picture it appears in the same folder as the original in the Organiser, although it doesn't offer to stack the new version with the existing picture (Elements does, which is very useful).
Serif PhotoPlus Starter Edition software is a powerful and flexible photo editing software designed for use with Windows operating systems. It fixes damaged, corrupted, or missing pictures in your computer. It makes use of an advanced artificial intelligence that restores the original picture after applying a variety of image enhancements, filters, and special effects. To fix an irritating photograph, just download Serif PhotoPlus, install the software, and start fixing.
Serif Draw Plus has many advanced features, including one-touch operation from a desktop or portable device. The program also has a complete set of standard tools for retouching photos, including Brush Strokes, Highlights, Drop shadows, Radial gradient, and Alpha Masking. This graphics tool allows users to make professional looking corrections, which gives your photographs an impressive 3D effect. The software works with most of the common computer operating systems.
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